And It Could Work For You: "Something Good Can Work"

Here's a nice summery song that will make you want to participate in a montage of fun activities with a group of attractive people:

The song: Two Door Cinema Club, "Something Good Can Work"; 2011

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I am still on this kick of songs about happiness, because I am beginning to put together my own theory of happiness.

Sometimes I wish I didn't have to make a theory about everything before I can truly accept it, but this is the way my mind works. It hurts sometimes because it never shuts itself down -- my mind, that is. But I've learned I've just got to keep feeding it things to think about so it doesn't turn on itself.

In fact, keeping my mind from turning on itself is one of my main occupations.

I was born with a very heavy genetic predisposition toward mental illness. I don't talk about this much because I don't like to. But a genetic predisposition is a genetic predisposition, and a life is a life, and mine has made me into a person who can be obsessive, moody, impulsive, despairing, and/or nervous in turns.

My brain is my best friend and my worst enemy.

In my life I spend a lot of time thinking about things that seem like they don't bear that much thinking about. Like popular music, and Dancing with the Stars, and why there are so many flavors of gum right now. (Seriously though, why?)

Happiness is one of those things, but only for people who know what it is instinctively. Just like mainstream culture is not worth thinking about for those who have never felt themselves to be alienated from it.

I don't know what happiness is, or at least I haven't known it. That's not to say I've never been happy in my life: I've been white-water rafting, and played Risk, and gone to the mall with friends -- I've had good experiences and relief from the darker sides of life, certainly. But I wouldn't call my past self a happy person, in the sense of being able to fall asleep knowing I would be happy again in the morning.

I think this is because happiness is like any other meaningful pursuit, and it takes time and a level of self-knowledge to create. But happiness is among the more challenging of meaningful pursuits, not only because it is so ineffable but because humans seem to be willing to accept a base level of unhappiness as their punishment for being alive. That's a big statement I know, but I also know I can't be the only person who has ever thought something like "man this chair is REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE but eh, it'd be too much work to move."

So I hope you'll bear with me as I try to work this out, and I hope you'll occasionally find something of worth for yourself in the various thoughts I share about this issue. I just want to say, more to myself than anything but also to you: I know it seems like happiness should be self-evident, and I know it seems like there's something wrong with you when it's not. But that's the beginning of the theory, not its end, and something good can work.

What's next?

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